Marisa Coughlan

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Captain Glenn (Patrick Wilson) is a struggling alcoholic and an arguably bad captain for Omega 76. To this end, his is sent a new assist captain, Jessica (Liv Tyler) to help him, and ensure that he continues to do his job properly. Ted (Matt Bomer), the robotic armed mechanic, and Misty (Marisa Coughlan) are undergoing relationship issues, with Misty taking far too quickly to the station's new medication features. As the strong personalities of the residents collide to a funky disco beat, the resultant mix of suburban feuding and retro sci-fi creates an explosion of hilarity.

I may not love your work but I don't think much of your mind, either. The mind, that is, of the guy responsible for this cult psychodrama on steroids, writer-director Adam Goldberg.

His Gray Evans (Giovanni Ribisi) is a movie star who can't go far without being recognized and adulated, but he's being led down the path of depression by psychotic paranoia spiked with narcissism. He's married to his boyhood idol, Mia (Franka Potente), who truly loves him, but she's more the inspiration for distrust than love and joy. Self-destruction lurks in the wings.

Wait a sec: A movie about a writer in Hollywood who gets to the top without having a real script!? Ya don't say!

Kevin Taylor (Jordan Bridges) is a Hollywood newcomer who can't get anywhere with his screenwriting, so he ends up working as a personal assistant to a small production company. Tired of being teased by his more successful compatriots, he invents a writer and a script called The New Suit, which of course becomes The Hot Thing in Hollywood, despite the fact that no one has met the writer or read the script. Things spiral toward a bidding war and into absurdity.

I have quickly found myself tiring of the peculiar tedium of the gritty twentysomething whodunit. While I'll fess up to having liked Cruel Intentions, recent films like Body Shots and The Skulls have left a sour taste in my mouth.

Once upon a time there was a writer named Kevin, who wanted to make a big splash in Hollywood. He wrote a movie called Killing Mrs. Tingle, which didn't sell, so he tried again. The next time he wrote a movie called Scream, which single-handedly revived the horror genre, paving the way for big horror flicks... and even small ones like The Blair Witch Project.

And then he made a TV show called Dawson's Creek, which was also a huge success. And another horror flick. And Scream 2. And then this writer was the hottest thing on Sunset Blvd., and even Killing Mrs. Tingle started to look good. Miramax bought it. They even let the guy direct.

Written by and starring members of the comedy troupe Broken Lizard, Super Troopers definitely starts out exhibiting a lot of potential. The four guys of Broken Lizard play Vermont state troopers - Thorny, Rabbit, Mac, and Farva - that spend their days pranking folks they pull over on the highway into Canada, played out to particularly good effect in the opening scene involving a car full of stoned college kids. Plus, they get their kicks picking fights with the local fuzz, and battling to keep their precinct from being shut down by the budget-minded governor (Wonder Woman herself, Lynda Carter).

Unfortunately, Super Troopers never really hits its stride. While these pals who met at Colgate University (and produced Puddle Cruiser there) seem to be having a blast paying homage to cheesy '70s and '80s comedies - from the brilliant like Animal House and Caddyshack to the retarded like Cannonball Run and Police Academy, most of their gags fall flat - especially the biggest ones. And as much as I appreciate good old fashioned boy humor (masturbation, crotch shots, blow-up dolls, etc.), it's frustrating to see these guys - who are obviously pretty clever - waste their talent on parodies of things they probably thought were funniest when they were high.

We're all different. But when someone's handicap makes their uniqueness especially noticeable, what is the acceptable reaction? Most of us would simply acknowledge the differences and move on. The makers of Pumpkin however find plenty of dark humor in the subject matter. Some of their jokes work, but most fail miserably and in the end, Pumpkin is far more offensive than it is funny.

The ignorant Carolyn (Christina Ricci) leads the perfect life of a college senior -- she's an officer in her sorority and dates Kent (Sam Ball), the tennis team stud. Everything is going well until it's decided that her sorority will mentor the handicapped adults of the Challenged Games (think Special Olympics). Carolyn is against the charity selection, but the sorority president (Marisa Coughlan) believes helping these special athletes train will give the sorority enough points to win Sorority of the Year.

Hey, you know what's funny? False accusations of child molestation. That's just the most hilarious way to get back at your father for being mean to you because you're a hopeless screw-up. At least, that's what Tom Green seems to think.

Green is that MTV personality who takes a video camera out into the world to record himself accosting embarrassed strangers and performing gross-out stunts for the amusement of easily entertained viewers. He wrote, directed and stars in "Freddy Got Fingered," a lose collection of sub-par Green gags orbiting around a 28-year-old unemployed nitwit whose dad (Rip Torn) hates him because, well, he's a worthless human being who goes out of his way to make Dad ashamed of him.

Rife with more and better twists than a teen-targeted psychological thriller deserves, "Gossip" is a dark and borderline-tantalizing popcorn flick about a trio of sociology majors whose experiment manipulating the campus rumor mill runs amok into rape and murder charges.

Their little project -- ostensibly groundwork for a paper in an introspective sociology class taught by the subversive Eric Bogosian ("Talk Radio") -- begins as an admittedly mean-spirited test of how rumors grow and mutate. After seeing a reputedly virginal rich girl (Kate Hudson) pass out at a party while necking with her boyfriend (Joshua Jackson), they plant the story that the two had sex in an upstairs bedroom.